In recent years, a swallowable capsule endoscope has been proposed in the field of endoscopes. The capsule endoscope includes an imaging mechanism and a radio communication mechanism. The capsule endoscope functions to move in body cavities such as interiors of organs, e.g., the stomach and the small intestine, according to peristaltic movements of the organs, and to pick up intra-subject images at intervals of, for example, 0.5 second until natural discharge of the capsule endoscope after a subject (human body) swallows the capsule endoscope from his/her mouth for observation (examination).
During the movement of the capsule endoscope in the body cavities, image data on images picked up by the capsule endoscope is sequentially transmitted to an outside by radio communication, and accumulated in a memory provided outside. By carrying a receiving apparatus including a radio communication function and a memory function, the subject can act freely since swallowing the capsule endoscope until discharging it. After the capsule endoscope is discharged, a doctor or a nurse can diagnose the subject while displaying the images of the organs based on the image data accumulated in the memory on a display (see, for example, Patent Document 1).
Patent Document 1: Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2003-19111